When Breath Becomes Air is short enough to read in one-sitting, but powerful enough to linger for days/months/years. It’s a sad book–any book that ends with the death of a 37-year-old is–but, as Paul’s wife Lucy writes, “What happened to Paul was tragic, but he was not a tragedy.” The book is less about dying and more about learning to live, and it’s a wonder that Paul was able to write this book while battling progressive lung cancer. Lucy (who later fell in love with the widower of another memoirist) also wrote a compelling epilogue that brought tears to my eyes.